Travel article: Tortuguero

Still on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica is Tortuguero (“ where turtles lay their eggs”).

3 weeks before we were on the other side of the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua but on the Nicaraguan side !

We took mum into the jungle lured by the promises of seeing caimans, parrots, cormorans, giant iguanas, lizard walking on the water (nicknamed Jesus Christ!), poisonous snakes, frogs and spiders, sloths and many more species.

Believe it or not, we saw it all!

Tortuguero has been declared national park and protected since 1964. First park of Costa Rica it has been able to preserve its fauna & flora.

Our adventure started at La Pavona where we rushed to be on time to take a mini-boat to reach tortuguero village. On the 1 hour ride, we saw a crocodile laying on the « beach » , a basilico, big iguanas and many birds! So cool.

At night we took a night tour with a guide to walk into the jungle and try to see animals. We saw some fluo snakes, spiders, slots, birds sleeping , all of these walking in pitch black in the jungle, with just our flash light getting through lon grass. Scary!

The day after, 4.30am wake up to do a cruise and see & hear the jungle waking up.

Again we saw many animals ! My favorite: the basilico !

We heard toucans but unfortunately we didn’t see any: 2 weeks in Costa Rica and still no toucans , do they really have some?

On our small boat we had to paddle to get through the canals of the jungle (well as a captain I didn’t paddle at all ;) )

Such a cool feeling. Only issue the back pain we have 2 weeks after starting raising our head to spot animals : hard life :)

Unfortunately when we disembarked mum slipped over and twisted her shoulder and got almost KO from the chock. More fear than harm, 1 week later it was all fixed up!

We then walked into the national park but didn’t see anything, it’s definitely better to do a cruise!

We all loved Tortuguero for its peaceful atmosphere between jungle and beach time and of course  animals. Great few days into the jungle and we saw way more animals than on the Nicaraguan side.

Some recommandations:

# we recommend doing the night tour and the cruise. They complement each other. Quite expensive though!

Night tour $20 usd; cruise $25 usd

# for the Cruise, make sure you take a boat with no motor. It’s causing animals to run away.

# we slept at “tortuguero backpackers”. A great value and great little hostel